color palettes: turkey

This time last year, we were just getting back from a two week trip to Turkey. It was an overwhelming, exhausting, and unforgettable trip filled with some of the best food of my life. And cats. So many lovable street cats. Once every couple of months, I find myself going through the, oh I don’t know, 1,000 or so photos I took during our visit and thinking to myself “were we really there? Why haven’t I made kaymak yet? Did I really spend a morning lazing on a hammock watching hot air balloons, in a town surrounded by phallic-shaped rocks? How many stray cats did I pet? 100? 200?”

I’ve been working on a number of creative projects lately and I keep finding myself drawn to the photos I took in Turkey for color inspiration. Inspired by sites like Design Seeds, I’ve made a few color palette boards to help get me going various projects:

Aios Konstantinos Eleni Church in Mustafapasa. It was an optional part of one of our tours and we had to pay a small fee to go inside. It was lovely, peaceful, and we had the place to ourselves.

Morning in Ephesus. Ephesus was once home to 50,000 Romans. Now it’s home to about 50,000 cats.

Hierapolis. Not pictured: throngs of Russian tourists in speedos and bikinis at nearby Pamukkale.

Cihangir Istanbul, a neighborhood full of artists and intellectuals. And steep hills.

Taken on Istiklal street in Istanbul. Istiklal street is a very busy, very crowded pedestrian (uh, mostly) street. Probably my favorite photo from our entire trip.

Sirince, a small (formerly Greek) village just outside of Ephesus. The village is known for its various wines, so Cory and I picked up a couple bottles of fruit wines (strawberry and peach). We spent a couple hours walking around, but there wasn’t much for us to do there. Picturesque, but painfully touristy.